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Boxing body picks Nyilawila’s replacement |
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Wednesday, 25 January 2012 22:15 |
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By Majuto Omary
The Citizen Reporter
Dar es Salaam. A Portuguese professional boxer, Vitor Sa, must be wearing a wider smile after being picked to replace the former World Boxing Federation (WBF) middleweight champions, Karama Nyilawila.
The WBF met recently and officially stripped Nyilawila of his belt, and picked the Portuguese to vie for the vacant WBF middleweight title.
Nyilawila, who was the WBF world champion, decided not to defend his title after failing to do so for over a year and opted to engage in a “money-spinning” non-title bout against Francis Cheka.
Speaking with The Citizen yesterday, WBF’s representative Emmanuel Mlundwa disclosed that the Tanzanian boxer was formally stripped of his title and that Sa will vie for the prestigious belt.
Mlundwa said the WBF’s move was a big disappointment for promoter Erol Ceylan who had already started promoting Nyilawila’s fight against German Ernis Cagri.“We did not expect such a high profile boxer to refuse to defend his WBF title and go for a non-title bout.
“Organisers had already started promoting the bout, but to the disappointment of both fans and the promoter, he decided to fight Cheka,” Mlundwa said. “It’s a big loss for Tanzania and the promoter as well, we strived to convince him to fight the German but our efforts were to no avail,” he added.
Nyilawila was required to swing back into action last month to defend his title, but the Pugilist Syndicate of Tanzania (PST) said it had no money to facilitate the title defence bout.Mlundwa admitted that they were racing against time to raise the money needed to pay sanction fees, but their efforts bore no fruit and Nyilawila decided otherwise.
“WBF needed about Sh7.5 million ($5,000) to sanction the bout. We couldn’t afford to raise that amount because our boxing body does not have enough money,” said Mlundwa. Nyilawila, one of the best middleweight pugilists in the country at the moment, won the WBF title in the Czech Republic last year at the expense of Kreshnik Qato.
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